Vishy Anand Retains World Championship!

World Champion Vishy Anand has retained his title in a tense and exciting tie-break playoff with Boris Gelfand.

The Indian champion missed a winning opportunity in the first game with black, but won the second game of the 4-game tie-break when some excellent preparation drove Gelfand into terrible time-trouble and he lost a drawn ending.

Anand was lucky to survive a cramped position in game three, with the challenger missing the crushing 26. Nxe4, and Anand drew the final game to retain the title.

Game 1: A very sharp and tactical game ended with a draw. Gelfand erred with 19.a4? which allowed 19...Qf3 and it looked like Anand had winning chances, but he seemed surprised by 22.Ra3 after which the advantage swung back to Gelfand. Despite this, Anand managed to hold for a draw. A missed opportunity for Anand?

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Game 2: Vishy Anand wins and takes the lead! The opening followed game 10 until Anand varied with 7.d4. Gelfand was caught in the champion's preparation, and fell behind on the clock as he tried to solve his opening problems.

Anand found the strong move 17.Rg5, obtaining an excellent position, but Gelfand fought hard and achieved great drawing chances. Alas for the Israeli challenger, he was unable to continue to find the best moves as he survived solely on the 10 second increment, and Anand took the lead.

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Game 3: Another exciting draw. Anand varied with 4...Bf5 and Gelfand grabbed a lot of space with 13.c5 and 14.f4. Anand's pieces became badly unco-ordinated and he sacrificed a pawn to free them and gain some activity.

Once again Gelfand was well behind on the clock and he missed the winning 26. Nxe4 after which Anand eventually achieved a draw.

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Game 4: Vishy Anand draws the game with white and retains his title!

Anand exchanged queens early on to simplify the position at the cost of a slightly better position for his opponent.

Gelfand didn't need to be asked twice to attack, and threw his pawns forward on both sides of the board. But the champion had it all under control, and despite Gelfand's desperate efforts, he had to settle for a draw and the end of his challenge.

Actually, Vishwanathan is not his first name, it is his father's name. Tamilians don't have a practice of having a first name and surname, they just have their name and put their father's name's first letter as their initial, like, I'm G. Balachandar and he is V. Anand.

And his name's pronounciation is Aa-nundh and not an-aand, which I hear all foreigners pronounce in news reports, etc.

Great to see Tamil Nadu, the state in India from where Anand hails, taking a lead in promoting the game at school level. Hopefully other states will follow suit and create a chess playing culture in India at grass root level. I think I will get into the business of selling chess clocks soon :-)

Anand Receives Rs.2 Crores From Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamilnadu

The Honourable Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa handed over Rs.2 Crore to World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand at the Fort St George in Chennai on June 6, 2012.

Anand said, he thanked the Chief Minister for the reception at the airport and for the Rs.2 Crore award. Anand gave the Chief Minister a memento and his wife Aruna Anand offered the Chief Minister flowers.

"The next world chess champion can emerge from India," said Anand while welcoming to the Tamil Nadu announcement to introduce chess from the ages 7-17 in schools. Speaking to the media, Anand said it was his first meeting with the Chief Minister.

AICF President J.C.D. Prabhakar and D.V. Sundar, Vice President of FIDE were also seen with Vishy Anand. Prabhakar is a senior member of the ruling AIADMK and is also a sitting MLA from Villivakam, one of the city constituencies.

A sum of Rs.2,00,00,000 (about $365,000) is the largest award offered to any chess player in the world. Tamil Nadu Government has set a new trend.

It may be reminded that Tamil Nadu Government made a bid for this Anand v Gelfand match for Rs.20 Crores and despite that, FIDE overlooked it and went for a private bidder.

What do you expect Anand to say? For his taste he would play WCC matches against Gelfand for the next 20 years. At 1.5 milion $ match, who wouldn't? And he will raise a similar amount after losing to Carlsen or Aronian in the next match. Comfortable retirement guaranteed. Much less if he had to share the prize fund with other 7 players.

Obviously, Anands and Gelfands are the less objective opinions to be laid about the format.

New Delhi: In a rare display of irritation, Viswanathan Anand, who has just won his fifth world title, hit out at chess great Gary Kasparov and other critics for suggesting that he lacked motivation.“I think that this is the first time I have played a match where so many people seemed to have negative opinion about my play. And the thing is I do not think I lacked motivation,” Anand said about his clash with Israel’s Boris Gelfand, whom he beat in Moscow on Wednesday to win his fifth world title.The 42-year-old Anand said Kasparov “keeps talking about my age” but Gelfand was slightly older at 44. The champion, who is known for his cool temperament, said that he had proved Russian Kasparov wrong. Some years ago, he had described Kasparov as his nemesis after losing matches to him. Not only Kasparov, “there were many people also parroting what he was saying,” Anand said.“He (Kasparov) keeps talking about my age but I could just as well say Boris (Gelfand) is even slightly older. I think the problem is all the people who started out assuming that I was the heavy favourite in this match were reluctant to admit that their prognosis was wrong,” Anand said.Anand said he never considered himself as the favourite and knew that Gelfand would be a tough opponent. “I never saw myself as a favourite, the thing I knew Gelfand would be a very difficult opponent. And looking at his recent plays I understood that this is how the match would go. And so I never felt I had to answer after every game ‘what was going wrong?’ because nothing was going wrong.”

This WC had a few good games like game 12 with positional pawn sacs by both sides, but overall it was not that great. Can't say whether it is due to over computer aided home preparation or not risk taking attitude of the players, but the games weren't that interesting. We can't blame the players for not taking many risks because even one failure could mean the tournament is over as it is so close. But from spectator's point of view, its not very interesting.

@coolchess1: good point there: whiners will whine whatever be the format. I do not remember exactly how many draws were there in first match between Karpov and Kasparov - but there were plenty and at the end it was abandoned as both players got tired - and perhaps spectators too :-) !!

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